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Today was the beginning of Depawalii – everyone celebrates it differently. The family we live with celebrates 4 days of it. Today is the beginning, and tomorrow is the main day of the holiday with fireworks and crackers going all night – VERY LOUD ;) Tomorrow they will decorate the ground (I’ll take pics) but today was just many lights and shopping and a few fireworks (all night). The green stuff that Shakshi is playing with is to decorate the floors with tomorrow. It's sawdust from cleaning the floors that has been dyed...

It looks like Christmas here – almost EVERY house has lights… it looks cool! There are tons of stores set up on the side of the roads that have statues of their gods in all shapes and sizes. Another thing that they do is to put candles around their house. Eleven is the lucky number. They put the candles around the doors and in the front of the house. They make the candles with cotton rolled into a wick and then they pour cooking oil into the little mini clay pot…

The kids that live downstairs from us kept telling us about a performance they were going to have at school that was coming up…well, it was yesterday, and it started early in the morning, so we had to get up early and all cram in their car. Anyway, we get there and it was a whole school athletic meet. It was awesome!! They had all sorts of athletic events. Shakshi was in the dancing group. They did a dance – it was cool. Raj was in the PT group (kinda like PE) – they did stretching exercises together to the beat of a drum and the sound of the harmonium (a mini organ that is a lot like the accordion – you have to pump it – it’s crazy) :)

They had competitions after that. They had all sorts of races… it was funny. They would call people (usually grandparents – because they are very respected) out of the audience to hand out the awards for a group. For example – they had the 100 meter race and they called Mr. Singh, grandfather of Shapangi Singh to come forward and give out the honors for…

This is a pic of Adam and the kids that we live with . They live downstairs. We play with them everyday from 3:00-5:00 :) On this day we were playing a game with Big Red gum... I don't know if you know it... In this game you put the gum in your mouth - then you lick the silver part of the wrapper and stick it to your forehead... and you see who can keep it there the longest... (the cinnamon makes it start to burn after a while) - Anyway, it was funny and they thought it was great :)